Duel vs Thralion
by Kalar Nightblade
Summary: From the Tournament of the Glacier Blade, Nightblade battles the asur Thralion in the semi-finals, a battle that ends not like expected.


RUM_ID=9  
  
Name: Thralion Aleanlylth  
  
Race and Gender: Male asur(high elf)  
  
Age, actual and apparent: 175, late teens, early twenties.  
  
Height and build: 6'5, heavily muscled considering his small elven frame.  
  
Hair and Eyes: Dark brown hair cropped short and deep green eyes.  
  
Physical Description: Thralion is handsome, even by elven standards, a result of choice breeding within his family. He has a slightly tanner skin tone than most elves, and his short hair both making this asur have is own unique look compared to the majority of his long haired and fair skinned brethren. When not in battle he wears the traditonal robes of elven nobility, as well as a turquoise cloak with his family's emblem printed upon it, two mounted elves crossing lances.  
  
Career and Skills: Was a silver helm for fifty years, but do to some complications he resigned. Being a noble and also belonging to a highly militaristic family, Thralion is incredibly skilled with a blade, additionally training under his Sword Master uncle in Saphery for 25 years. He is also as skilled with a bow as any other elf, but his true prowess is shown in his swordsmanship. In addition to his martial skills, Thralion is somewhat of a prodigy when it comes to battlefield tactics and strategies, actually becoming the captain of his unit of Silverhelms for twenty years. Being an elven noble, he is also intelligent and is used to courtly formalities, although he prefers to share a campfire with his soldier brethren over a goblet of wine with members of the Phoenix King's court.  
  
Mental Description: Being rather Intelligent, Thralion can easily infuriate members of the lesser races, his witty remarks either confusing or insulting them before they have a chance to insert a response of their own. He is also extremely arrogant and headstrong, and also is rather short tempered for an elf.  
  
Weapons & Armor: An ithilmar longsword which is lightly enchanted so it may cut daemon flesh and pierce armor more easily than most swords. Thralion also wears a suit of Ithilmar half-plate, half-chain armor and a silver helm, which is in the same style as the elven cavalry of the same name. In addition to these items, he carries a longbow and quiver, as well as a dagger that is hidden in his belt.  
  
Religion: The basic high elven pantheon, although Kurnous, Asuryan and Hoeth are his current patron dieties.  
  
"He's here?!" The hard voice bounced roughly around the small, stone-laid room a few times before being properly absorbed by the mighty, lilac carpet. The man talking had previously been sitting in a chair of wondrous design, made of mighty oak and entwined with silvery lines of great precision, but now he stood straight up and had his eyes totally focused on the man before him.  
  
"Yes, master, I am sure of it..", the middle-age man kneeling on the carpet said, his head tightly squeezed with bald spot against the soft carpet, "one of our informants tell of a newly arrived elf of great prowess." His voice was little more than a hushed whisper, stern and rough, all the while sounded very weak and slightly annoyed next to the domestic one that had spoken before.  
  
"How can we be sure that it's him?" the other spoke again, casting a last glimpse at the man before walking over the small, circular window adorning his much decorated wall. Outside, a small village lie still without activity and further away in the horizon, almost two miles from the current location, a great castle. Occasionally, cheers or their contrary reached his ears and his black eyes slowly tightened to small slits, as if focusing very, very far away. Like he had done most of his life, he put his hands grasping into each other on his back, and leaned backwards, straightening up. A large part of the body bounced in reaction.  
  
"According to sources, namely captain Jorg of the last expedition, the subject is quite handsome and slightly tanned. He wields a mighty arsenal of skills and weapons alike, judging by his previous fights in the tournament." the man continued, now allowing himself to take his head up and look upon the red robes of the other. He spoke as a machine now, as if head had trained the whole previous night so that not a single syllable would be mispronounced, and the words taken in his mouth fitted not his usual way of speaking. Somewhere, deep in his head, he hated himself for lying in a praying position and speaking to a fat, gloated old man, and he wanted to rise and kick him in the back. Luckily for him, common sense and fear ruled his mind.  
  
"I see that enough." he replied, as to cut of an oncoming storm of words he didn't need. The description read fitted exactly on the profile he remembered, and he took upon himself a hideous, stern grin. An objective onlooker might have said that it looked like a dead pig smiling. Seconds later in this situation, he would have been a not-so-smiling and yet dead onlooker.  
  
"Yes, master." it came from the ground-level. Had he been able to, he had kicked his own behind for adding such a thing. He could almost feel his master raise an eyebrow due to his overuse of commenting, and the older to raise an eyebrow was a sign of cut pay. At best. He now decided to be very, very quiet and to further examine the carpet's myriad of colours and hues with his head comfortably squeezed against the floor.  
  
"So.. you dared to find your way back to me. This time I will have your head, impetuous elfling." The other spoke in a shushed voice, half aware that he spoke loud and half not. He didn't care, since no one would dare comment it anyway. A course of action from several years ago expanded into his mind just now, and the painful loss of a whole raiding expedition and the report of an individual who had a gleaming sword, dazzling skills and an unusual tanned skin, leading the retaliators, stood clear. Placing the good captain in the veteran's floor in this tournament was a move of brilliance, now at second thought. A plan formed in his crude brain..  
  
"Kein! Send for my best assassin." He said shortly.  
  
"Yes, master van Ruthen."  
  
"Oh, and Kein.." van Ruthen added with a wave of his hand, not turning around to look upon his servant. His voice had a tone of a sudden invigoration, and through the room a chill bounced around and landed straight in Kein's mind.  
  
"Yes, master?" Kein said without taking in breath. A bead of sweat had formed on his forehead, and the two guards situated at his sides now placed their cold eyes on him again. The freezing steel in their armours and swords almost made him chill, although he was several feet away from them.  
  
"Do tell that they bring back that peculiar sword of his.. it might prove useful." van Ruthen said, disguising his exaltation of having such a relic in his hands, and the musty price it would fetch on the market in salty, ignorant words of a nobleman with less interest than possible be.  
  
"It shall be done." The servant said hastily, before slowly running out of the room, praying briefly to Sigmar as he passed by the armoured guards. Inside the room, invisible to all except a lone bird outside, van Ruthen's smile widened into a grin.  
  
An hour later, deep within and under a mansion of old reputation, a single man was showed into a cold chamber of stone. Inside the torchlight's radius, a single table could be seen and a hooded presence sitting across it raised its head from a seemingly sleeping position, taking in the newly arrived man's whole life in an eye blink. The man, who seemed perfectly fine with being sent into a room that then was locked with this man, calmly took the close by chair and sat down. In his hand, he held several pages of parchment that he laid upon the table the second after seating. For a few moments, the two looked upon each other in silence. Eye met darkness, and none flinched. After a while, the messenger brought down his eyes on the paper in front of him, to read instructions in dim torchlight, and then raised his view again. The other didn't move.  
  
"Codename Viper, we have need of your services." he said as slowly as he had seated.  
  
"Your orders are to find, torture and eliminate this target." With the voice, a thin stack of papers were showed across the table with a slight nudge. They didn't spread since they were fastened by thin threads, and so the arrived in front of the other, hooded man with a small cloud of dust as the only remark that they had ever changed owner. A few seconds passed by, and then a relaxed, slender arm reached out and grabbed the pieces of paper, slit up the threads and started reading. The bald man looked at him, and said nothing further. After several minutes of flicking paper, the hooded one lay down the paper from eye height and looked deep within his mind's eye.  
  
".. an elf?" he said, in a thin, scrawny voice before he added with a slight hint of disbelief, invisible to all but the trained ear, "A mere elf?"  
  
"Our sources tell that he is more than that." The bald man said and nervous knitted his fingers, for the first time showing any real emotion. The subject he was going to enter obviously made him quite unsure of how to proceed, but his eyes wouldn't tell, and so he continued starkly "Read attached paper from your deceased sister Firebrand."  
  
The man opposite the table looked like he was about to rise and burst out the room, after planting a dagger to its hilt in the other man's head. Viciousness oozed from his being, and for the first time he raised his eyes from the papers and showed his face's expression to the light. Anonymous man number one raised an eyebrow in distrust and awe. "Is he the one..?"  
  
"Indeed. Now, say no more; read well."  
  
"Is it true?" the man said in distrust, dreamingly and still very, very clear that he had heard it right. The question sounded more like a "So, you really want to die?" than what he said.  
  
"All that's stated, we must take for true." Came the simple reply, and the nervous fingers stopped knitting each other. Even the small, salty drop of sweat seemed to draw back into his head. He was on clear ground now.  
  
"Your reputation is great, Viper, and now it is time to prove it. This man has taken down one of our masters, a sister of great care, and should you succeed, the council guarantees your rising in rank." The speech was well recorded by a mind that was used to recording messages. This had not been his first visit to the Lair, but he hoped for it every time to be the last. For the moment, though, his own safety came before any well wishes.  
  
"..The mission shall be accomplished." The assassin stated, and rose from his chair. A gust of wind, a sudden burst of silent movement, and the trained murder had left the room never to come back. Further down the hall, a petite crossbow was removed from its ancient standing, and a set of long, delicate bolts were taken from a oak table. Inside his head, the herald could clearly seem, rather than imagine, the green, fuming liquid that Viper in this very moment poured over the bolts with utter perfection, and his carefully mounted crossbow on the back, twisted to the form of a lute. The small briefcase he had left behind ensured that he got the perfect disguise with him and the masters at the school had clearly stated that Viper's anatomy fitted very well for the costume at hand.  
  
"Good. At return, your wages shall be paid accordingly." The left behind man said, as to secure his own position, before he left the room with a certain smile upon his face. The wrath he had set loose was sure to kill that arrogant elf, and if he succeeded, they would kill Viper to avoid revenge from the caste; if he failed, they'd punish him with death and send a new one after the victim. An all-win situation, his lord would reason.  
  
Yet another goblet was poured up, anew from the crystal canticle, the fresh and enthralling smell of elven wine fuming slightly before reaching the two silhouettes sitting in the room. The smaller one, a lean elf with showing musculature and silvery hair, reached forward and picked up the black goblet in a elegant move of finesse, placing it balancing on his lower fingers. In contrast, the pale, long fingers around the black velvet goblet were very obvious. As the individual took in an appreciating look in the goblet's depth with his ice-blue eyes, a dark booming voice emitted from the opposite side of the room. It halted the man's movements so hastily that one observing must have guessed that they had trained for it, since the reaction almost came a split-second before the addressing voice spoke.  
  
"Eldran.", it said with a slight down at the end. The words were deliciously formed with utter precision, and the dark pitch of the speaker seemed very out of place; it reminded of a man forming a song of wondrous measures underground, in the deepest abyss of hell. The youngster looked into the darkness across the table and spoke in an affectionate voice.  
  
"Yes, Kalar?" came the reply, more as a phrase of gentle manors than anything else. It would take an assassin to spot the sudden increase in stiffness in his face. The goblet wasn't even brought down, and the hand held it absolutely still in mid-air.  
  
"During my next fight, my wish is that you to take security precautions of safety.", the darkness spoke again, raising its head from resting position. The tanned face, beautifully framed by silvery hair, told of a feline and raw strength hidden yet many deaths had passed him by. The eyes, however, were black as the darkness outside, and in the vague candlelight they seemed to catch a red flame occasionally.  
  
"Why is this, if I may?" Eldran stated with a voice totally overflowing with indifference. The meaning seemed to hang free in the air amidst them before taking flight through the window, leaving the space open for a reply. It didn't come, as the black-clad individual summed up a fitting answer. After a visible eternity, it came just as sudden and reported as it should have.  
  
"Of course;", he said with a slight smirk, "the last fight drew too much attention. Old enemies have been alarmed." The hands that had been resting underneath his chin were gracefully stretched out over the table, and in one swing they had poured up a goblet of wine with an elegant twist, slowly and precisely. A hand hidden underneath a gauntlet of large proportions, a fine hunk of metal, held the bringer of wine and raised it towards Eldran before drinking shallowly from thin lips. Eldran countered with taking a deep sip from his cup, leaving the silvery bottom clear in view as it was placed down on the table with a slight knock.  
  
"You need say no more, master.", The black monk confirmed with a brief smile, "Your will shall be done." In response, Kalar Nightblade sunk his head back into resting while leaning harder back, the goblet of wine in his hand and them on the chair's arms. The lights flickered briefly in the room as a cold wind passed in from the north, and somewhere in the world a hooded individual left a mansion riding a black steed, his eyes set upon the very castle they now sat in.  
  
"Excellent. The rest I will take care of myself."  
  
"Perfect.."  
  
The infiltration had been a joke. In his costume, he had simply wiggled by the guards with a nonchalant smile, his lute playing tones of the old school and his legs twisting the dance of "a king's satisfaction". He had already spotted his target.. actually, he had been following the target around small periods all day long, and he was pretty confident that the elf hadn't gotten suspicious. He seemed a very deep thinker, that one, and Viper thought happily of the excruciating pain that soon would enfold his body and kill him within twenty-four hours of torture. There was no antidote to these poisons, he was sure of it, since he had tried it on his contact to be sure of its effectiveness.  
  
He broke up his train of thoughts as he carefully snuck through the empty square, dancing a lil' dance silently as he passed by the grinning gargoyles. In the sinking sun's last rays, their daemonic beings imbued almost a thread of fear in his soul, and the long rows of masterfully crafted devils proved yet again to be a sure pride of the town. The crafter had some thirteen years ago made them to ward away ghosts and attackers, and to this day neither ghost nor town-hostile being had entered the square.  
  
Reaching the high end of the inn he had chosen as his vantage point, he cursed slightly at the swiftly coming darkness. The previous battle had ended abruptly after several hours of strife, the amazon warrior Anatema at last put Lurg of Norsca to a state of unconsciousness after ripping every thread of her body, bellowing and throwing herself at him with her scimitar upon his chest. The norscan in a temporary state of awe and cheerful grinning, and so didn't defend too well. Either way, he thought as he screwed on the handle of the crossbow from the lute's neck, the darkness may as well prove an advantage for me and maybe even a safe escape.  
  
The slender bolt was loaded into place into the multi-stringed crossbow, and he lay down in the perfect position for sniping. From this spot, it was only about fifty feet down to the arena, and he lay just upon the roof of the coliseum. Without him even knowing it, he uttered that word of excellence that only a conscious killer does when he's really satisfied.  
  
The fighters were entering the arena.. his eyes immediately lined up with his target. Shimmering armour, a lean blade.. [i]oh yes[/i], it was him alright. He took aim.  
  
His arms were shaking just slightly, but the drug he had imbued before started to take effect. "Steady now." He uttered under his breath and tightened his grip on the crossbow's wooden hull..  
  
They say that people like a fair fight. It might be true, but the people gathering around in an arena to see two people do battle do not want honourable combat. They want blood, and gallons of it. So when the battle between a high elf and a supposed dark elf is announced to take place and people start taking of their hatred and loathing of each other, they gather to observe and interact. Like moths to a lamp, like flies to a rotten corpse.. they gather to see the duel, to be in concert with the duel and to gloat in the fact that one of them will die.  
  
This was one of these events. After carrying Lurg's still drooling body of the sandy court, having the slaves dusting and cleaning and the officers and veteran finding their places, the stadium became filled to the edges. It just happened. During the day, only a few people had gathered to observe. The battle that so far had drawn most attention this day was that of the amazon and the norscan, and then it had been mostly males that had come to watch the amazon bounce into action, rather than women gathering to see the drooling behemoth Lurg trashing about. This was something entirely different. This was one of these battles that children came to see, that women came to squabble over and drunken men came to puke to.  
  
When Thralion, supposed and propagandise good guy of the world, got on the field, the crowed utterly exploded into action, cheering and throwing pieces of women's wear down on him. Most came from women who became enthralled by his good looks, but some from men who found it quite amusing to rip clothes of women and then give them to a man wearing white skirts. Thralion, the fair elven prince, humbly bowed and avoided the underwear as good as he could. It would take a spy or another very, very observant man to catch glimpse of the frail nervousness hidden under the golden skin, swelling as he came nearer the centre of the field where his opponent supposedly soon would clash with him. He drew his fine, ithilmar blade out of his scabbard and looked upon it.. the blue runes gave out an aura of chaotic resolvant, and it intensified as soon as the shrouded being took his first step towards him.  
  
Kalar looked upon the crowed, fairly amused by the hail of boos and hisses that came over him. The memories of his last battle with the beast-dwarf Senleth had obviously been washed away in a flood of ale, since only the veterans remained as quite and almost frightened as they had been the last time he had left this very arena. He started to walk towards the middle, dodging several pieces of hardware that swiftly became removed by a trail of slaves following his trail, dodging and bowing. One or two hammers came rather close to him, but he swayed clear of them by thought and preceded unhindered and without change of pace to the middle. Until then, he hadn't even looked upon Thralion, other than briefly. His eyes had been locked at Eldran, sitting shrouded in black to every man's eye in the top level of the arena, close to the tower and the inn. But now, he brought his black pits of doom upon the fair elf, who only in his mind took a step back in reflective fear of red blood.  
  
"We finally meet, Kalar Nightblade. Rumour speak very little good of you." The elven warrior said after several seconds, seizing the initiative in dialogue. Kalar, obviously, wasn't getting too amused by simple dialogue before battle and replied in a cold, hollow voice.  
  
"There be truth in both statements, I reckon."  
  
"Have you prepared for thine unconquerable fall this day, druchii?" Thralion pressed on, his voice faltering slightly at the beginning only to be overtoned to the extreme at the end. His green eyes didn't want to avoid looking into Kalar's until after the response, but they did so anyway.. the darkness in those pits were simply overwhelming. It didn't show too much of this failed battle of minds, since Kalar briefly after lowered his head and let his platinum hair shower over him. Although set in a knot at the back of his head, it reflected well and hid his face from viewers for a moment. It'd take Thralion several minutes before he'd understand that Kalar had been bowing to him.  
  
"In a way." He whispered to himself, so thinly that not even Thralion's sensitive ears could catch the fleet words before they drowned in a sea of jeering, cheering and booing.  
  
"I can't hear.. was that a whisper of fear?" he said, mockingly. A reaction was all he needed to let loose his nervousness that had grown larger every second, and now threatened to lose him to the elf even before they had started their fight. Kalar was millennial, with not a single recorded battle lost, and Thralion still young with a flawed record.. his mind couldn't help to ask why he would be able to make any difference today?  
  
Kalar's reply never came. He simply let his head back up, his expression clear, and sunk down to battle position and waited patiently for Lendinel's signal to start. Thralion turned this arrogant posture and reaction to his advantage, and fuelled a small bit of anger that began to rose. The crowd caught on to the hostile vibes, and they didn't even hear Lendinel's signal. The high elf heard it, far away, but to him and the druchii his words were less important..  
  
"I take your silence as a yes. Prepare to fall in honourable battle: I will show you what the real elves do to keep the world a good place, and perhaps then will you see the error of your malicant and egoistic ways." Thralion said under utter silence. But instead of Kalar raising his eyes to reply wit ha cold stare, in a slow pace raised his head to glimpse up the palisade of the coliseum, near the inn's roof.. Eldran was gone.  
  
Was that one looking at him, he wondered? He swallowed hard and decided that it was of no matter. Somewhere in his mind, he lined up a phrase fitting for this moment, this sweet moment of revenge of his beloved Firebrand, his first and only lover. He settled with a not-so-good line that he'd later regret.  
  
"Give the first speakers my best, creature." A bolt was released with a sharp sting, flying down the palisade..  
  
It passed the first row. None cared. The second. None cared. The third, and still none cared. Time seemed to slow down in the ring, where Thralion still hadn't been able to raise his head to look where his opponent looked. He started to, now, and caught glimpse in the corner of his eye of a black and silvery projectile neared them. His ears buzzed with the sound of a sharp bolt, flying towards them at high velocity.  
  
In fear, he realised that the bolt was heading straight towards him. Probably his heart, judging by the angle, and Thralion also came to the conclusion that he wouldn't have time to move.. even his lithe body wouldn't be able to dodge something as fast as that with so little of a warning. The armour he carried, if little, would slow him down too much.. and with his current luck, the bolt would be poisoned. He, in a split- second, settled that this was the end of his days. He would die here, and die now. The prince, noble of heart, accepted his death and saw the barbed bolt in high speed come close to him..  
  
It is said that one can see everything around them. That is false. In the matter of near death, one freezes on to the very thing that threatens your existence and, as a matter of fact, that thing becomes your world. You can't see anything else, if you're not trained beyond recognition. Therefore, the elf prince couldn't see Kalar Nightblade dash in front of him, swiping out with his master-forged dagger almost before the bolt had ever left the building house. It all occurred to him as a blur of silver and red, a motion of exquisite perfection, a reaction of nature that had made Kalar the survivor he was.  
  
The bolt cringed and pierced hard into the ground half a feet away from the two elves. When he started running, he clearly saw that the tall, black clad elf was burning red and that his crimson eyes saw him perfectly fine through the perfect dark. Panic struck and only one word could fit what he believed had just experienced:  
  
"Impossible..!"  
  
"You.. saved my life?" Thralion staggered, still unable to believe what he had experienced.  
  
"I did." Kalar replied, with perfect sense of what was going on. A little attribute that annoyed people around him, but didn't matter for the moment. For the second time in two following fights, guards and medics were running down the aisles to catch the two combatants, and Lendinel's voice told everyone in the public to remain calm, something that was very hard to do since they all were screaming and running over each other in panic, like terrified livestock.  
  
For the elves, they were the only one's left. The world around he mattered little, and Thralion couldn't help to believe that he from this moment on would experience a lot more of these concentrated situations. Silent he was, several minutes, all the while stood straight above his crouched being. His mind raced, and he did more thinking these minutes than most humans do in a lifetime. He rose like liquid from a hole in ground, breathing and living again. His eyes locked on to Kalar's with unsaying security.  
  
"I admit courtly defeat.. I will simply not fight you this day." He said, clear of what he did. In his court, it was considered an apology to all wrong deeds done in a person's life to save a royal member, or any another asurian for that matter, with his own life at risk. Kalar had unselfishly thrown himself in front of a poisoned bolt, both knew that. Both were, maybe, as startled about the fact. This enforced his decision even more, and Kalar continued dialogue.  
  
"In a way, you did, and you obviously victored." came the steely response. Great depths lay between these words, hidden for the thinker to find. Thralion would search for sure.  
  
"Perhaps.. but take heed, Kalar of Nightblade! Our next encounter will not be stopped by any courtesy." He said. He bowed simply before him, and rose soon after with a peculiar half moon of a smile. The fact that Kalar was druchii seemed very distant right now, but he knew that he'd later on hate himself for bowing. He felt as if everything he did right now was putting a great impression in Nightblade's almost untouched area of senses.  
  
"I take that as a promise." Kalar said, and let a rare smile escape his thin lips. With that, the elven knight walked away from the arena, victorious in sense of battle and loser in means of indifference. This could be the step he had been looking for so long.. the first step back on the route of eldership, of royalty, of a normal life; the first step of many to become [i]elven[/i] again.  
  
The row of devils seemed. more. More alive. More threatening. Viper couldn't put his finger on it as he run down the rows, each step taking him closer to the city gates. The streets were deserted, everyone still panicking in the stadium, and his jester's outfit seemed very unfitting for him right now. The hat he had already dropped, and he was thinking about dropping the shoes when he suddenly caught a glimpse of movement in front of him.  
  
The moon came out from behind a cloud on the night sky, and beamed down in front of him. The long row of marble gargoyles.. of obsidian devils.. one of them seemed to move. Slowly, it took a step forward, crouching, viciously glaring at him, with short, silvery hair on top of a black, slender body. In its hands it held long, wicked talons, or was it simply lethal, malicious daggers transformed by his own terror? Viper would never again be so afraid, never again feel such dread for a single being. The answers his mind craved never came, but a wet sensation was already coming from underneath his underwear, as to spell out his doom to him.  
  
"What devilry..?" he uttered as he hunched back, clutching for his knife hidden underneath his pompous, brilliant pantyhose. The shadow neared with incredible speed, and the last thing he heard and saw before he was cut asunder and mutilated in a series of simple, swift movements, was the words of a young elf of legendary training, and the ice-blue eyes that followed with them.  
  
"It's Eldran, mon-kheigh."  
  
[purple]]Had to short this down in order to make it the time-limit.. the plan was first to make us battle a lil' while, but that wouldn't end too well, would it? Regardless of who of us win, I must say that your battle post put quite a frown in my mind, a real nail to bite on. Well fought, Thralion![/purple] 


End file.
